Valentine's parties

Just wanted to share some pictures of the kids classrooms here. Sojourn Academy has been a great school for the kids this year--there is about a 50/50 mix of missionary kids and Ticos. So while our kids are studying spanish, the Ticos are taking EFL (English as a Foreign Language).

Although in general, Valentine's Day is not nearly as big here in Costa Rica, the kids still celebrated with a party in their class--thus all the treats, red and pink clothes, and smiles.

Elections

Last Sunday, Costa Rica held its presidential elections. And for the first time, they elected a female president--Laura Chinchilla. We decided to check out the voting procedures as a family, so we walked down to the local school amidst many honking cars and waving flags. It felt like a party! Each political party had a booth outside the polling areas with their respective flags flying. Fortunately it was all very peaceful and orderly.

The kids were given their own flags to wave--as you can see in the picture. It was an interesting cultural experience for us--not too different from our own in the US--but definitely with its own Costa Rican flair!

Another month closer to Shell

Well it's been another month since I've updated the blog. While our life has been a lot of the same--going to school, studying, going to school, studying, taking a nap when the brain is overwhelmed, going to school again. There hasn't been much exciting to write about. But we are thankful for the mundane at times. We are thankful for all of the blessings God has given us--our family, our house, the opportunity to study and learn something new.
And certainly there has been plenty going on in the world around us that has drawn our attention--earthquakes in Haiti, tragedies and celebrations in the lives of friends and family, hellos and goodbyes. So somehow although our schedule doesn't seem to change much, there is always something new going on around us that keeps us busy.
There have been a few highlights in the last month though--Mike's new language course has been a blessing and a success so far. He is out in the community a bit more--talking and making relationships with people in our neighborhood and it helping so much with his ability to hear and to communicate in Spanish. He might not see a difference, but I can be the proud wife as he is becoming more and more comfortable communicating in Spanish.
We have a house waiting for us in Shell! How exciting to know that, God-willing--we will be settled in that house in just a few months. Although the thought of moving and setting-up house again is daunting, it is so encouraging to have this concrete goal to be working towards as we go about our day-to-day learning in spanish.
Lastly, Mike and I have started focusing more directly on medical spanish this trimester. This also is encouraging, because we have a good base of the general language on which to build, but now we are learning the words and phrases that we will be using every day with patients. This also breathes new life into the learning as we can obviously see the practical application of what we are learning.
Oh, I thought of one more thing. Ultimate frisbee! We have finally found a venue and a core group of people who are willing to get up on a saturday morning to play. It has been a lot of fun to be playing ultimate again after an 8 month hiatus since we left Malawi.
So that's our month in a nutshell. Sorry, no pictures right now to add. But I will work on that.